Day 6

States covered: 3 (IN, IL, MO)

Yet another great day of driving! Our day began with sunshine and blue skies in Terre Haute, IN. [There was some confusion with the clock in our room either last night or this morning, and it was accidentally set one hour ahead. Whoops! As a result, we got up one hour earlier than we intended to, but it worked out since our day got off to an early start.]

Our hotel included a free breakfast buffet, so we had plenty of food to fill us up for the road. We were plenty full, so we did not have to stop for lunch until we got to St. Louis.

We drove straight through Illinois without stopping (still very flat there!). I think it was in Illinois that we were tempted to stop when a sign promised "Foot Hi Pies". :-)

In the last few days we have discovered something wonderful about highways in the midwest. In the Boston area (and even into central and western Pennsylvania), all of the highways have exit numbers, corresponding to each exit from the road; the exit numbers proceed in numerical order, even if, say, exit 3 is fifty miles from exit 4. [This was the case in parts of Pennsylvania.] In the midwest (or at least in Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri), they seem to have a different system. Exit numbers on the highways here correspond to the mile markers on the highway. So, if there is an exit at milepost 139, it is exit 139. This is very useful for determining how far you are from the state line! In Massachusetts, if you're at exit 3 on the Mass Pike, you may think you're getting close to New York. How wrong you would be! Here, if you're at exit 3, you're about 3 miles from the state line -- how amazingly beautiful and simple! :-)

The St. Louis Arch was the main destination for our drive today, and we made it there just before noon. [Missouri is in the central time zone. It was quite strange to be driving and change time zones -- we were both a bit confused.] Since it was a highly off-peak time of year, there was no line whatsoever to buy tickets for the tram that took us to the top of the arch. The top of the arch was amazing! Visibility was quite good, so we could see a good distance from St. Louis. For some reason, Stephanie expected the great Mississippi River to be wider and more blue, but instead it was a decent width and quite muddy. We both had fun seeing all of the barges pushing their various cargo up and down the river though. We took quite a few pictures from the observation area of the arch.

After seeing the arch and inquiring at the information booth, we set off for Laclede's Landing, a cute shopping/dining area with cobblestone streets that happened to be right next to our parking lot! We selected a restaurant that Stephanie spotted in the AAA book called Hannegan's. The interior is modeled after the U.S. Senate dining room from the 1930's. We had some delicious food (Steph got a club sandwich, Todd got a crab cake sandwich), but we were sad to find out that they were all out of the deep dish blackberry pie. :-(

Stephanie took over driving after our stop in St. Louis. Thanks to 70mph roads through much of Missouri, we made excellent time. We drove much farther than we thought we would today, thanks to our alarm clock screw-up, the time zone change, and those fast roads!

Missouri had many more hills than the last few states that we have passed through, which made for more interesting driving. [Stephanie was thankful!] We arrived in Joplin, MO by about 5:30PM this evening. It's a fairly big city, just this side of the Oklahoma border. We got a great room at the Baymont Inns & Suites hotel. They're having a first anniversary special, so our room is super-cheap!

When we inquired at the front desk for BBQ/steak dinner recommendations, they unanimously recommended Jim Bob's Steaks & Ribs, which was a mile up the road. We took their advice, and we were very glad we did! We got a blossoming onion appetizer (which came with a wonderful BBQ dipping sauce) and the ribs for two. Our dinners also came with a salad, home-made rolls, and a side dish. Todd's side dish was a potato, which Stephanie insists was as big as Todd's head. [OK, maybe it wasn't that big, but I bet it was larger than most peoples' brains!] Unfortunately, we did not have room for dessert since we did not even finish our slab of ribs!

On the way home from dinner, we went exploring and found the biggest Wal-Mart that we have ever seen! Besides the regular Wal-Mart hugeness, it had a full-sized grocery store, a vision center, a hearing center, a hair salon, and a bank! We stocked up on some needed items and set back for our hotel.

Thankfully, we got home in time to see West Wing. :-)

Our current trip projections have us arriving in California by Monday -- we were both quite surprised about how much progress we're making! If our current (aggressive) progress projections hold, we'll get to Amarillo, TX tomorrow night, Flagstaff, AZ on Friday night, Las Vegas, NV on Saturday night, and San Diego on Sunday! Of course, we're not planning to do 500 mile drives each of the next few days, but you never know -- we could! So, we're throwing in an extra day for good measure. If we want to stop somewhere interesting, or if we are held up by inclement weather, the extra day will come in handy. :-)

That's about it for this evening. Now we have to dial long distance to log in and upload these logs!